First of all, sorry for the lack of posts over the last 2 weeks; I've been on vacation and only just got Internet access. Okay, some much-awaited exciting news is finally here: Realms sharing! Members can now make any of their realms public, which means that anyone can see or rate them (by pressing the "like" button). The Creators apparently have to approve each realm before it's published, though. In addition, every public realm has a unique code that you can share directly with a friend, like Multiverse rooms. Here's the official guide:

In other news, beating an Island now gives you 150 credits instead of the previous 50! (Of course, longtime players know that it used to be 100). It's not clear why they did this; perhaps they will be adding more items to the Store which can be bought by non-members. But there is another, more worrying possibility...

Nabooti Island just recently became closed to non-Members! This is the first time a previously free island later became Members-only (well, except Poptropolis Games, Mythology and Shrink Ray, but they were being upgraded to have sound and the bigger screen size). It's a worrying sign that Poptropica is going to such lengths to expand to TV, comics and mobile while neglecting the original game. Not only that, but recent island releases have been delayed significantly, or been of lower quality (Mystery of the Map, and the third episode of Arabian Nights is still not in sight). Oh well; the message being sent clearly here is that Poptropica is for paying players, and you know what? It's a high-quality game that most people wouldn't mind paying for. Anyway, enough ranting. Enjoy the summer and play Poptropica!

Poptropica Land has finally graduated out of its alpha phase, and out of it came Poptropica Realms! At first, when you land on it, you'll notice nothing much different from the Poptropica Land of old (except that your Poptanium number and levels have been reset to 0 -- trust me, crashing down from 570 and crawling your way up is not fun.) But there's something new. Realms is a totally new take on the idea of Land.

Instead of being limited to the three biomes of Asgard, Snow and Desert, you have an entire multiverse of worlds at your disposal that you can create, destroy and traverse at will. In essence, you've got as many biomes as your imagination will allow. Not to mention that it's got a kicking soundtrack now, something you can really relax into. Unlike those FREAKING ENDLESSLY LOOPED SONGBIRDS. Alright, sorry for shouting, but those birds had me on the edge.

And there aren't just three world types, either. You've now got your selection of Forest, Ice, Desert, Swamp, Lunar (not quite one-sixth gravity), Fire, and Crystal. The latter four are new, with new hazards and basic land/sky types, and the latter two are members-only. You can also give it a name and specify the size (which only determines the number of scenes it starts with -- you can always expand it by exploring).

As far as I can see, space is unlimited. So create away!

Poptanium now works very differently. You mine it the normal way, but you get 10 Poptanium points each time you get one piece. Building is no longer free; you spend 1 Pop point for each block. And the act of spending Poptanium, not hoarding it, makes you level up. I can't yet tell if this is encouraging or discouraging more creation.

Oh, and there are also now ad spaces in Realms. Bummer.

Something else. One of the early features of Land that the Creators had touted was the ability to download a copy of your worlds, serialized into a POP file, which you could then load in again. Of course, the main problem with this was that it was really easy to hack (I feel bad I never got to release my image-to-Land converting app). So that functionality is now gone. However, the Creators now promise that in the future, we'll be able to share individual lands directly with our friends! Possibly (and now I'm just being optimistic) we might even be able to collaborate in a friend's land.

The best part: many irritating bugs, especially the one where you could fly around the scene by going through platforms, have been either reduced or eliminated. Yay smoothness!

Hope you have fun with Poptropica Realms! Nice Hawk out for today (but watch this space this weekend, when I'll be announcing the winners of Hide & Seek!)

This is Poptrickia, serving you tips, tricks, cheats and more on the awesome game Poptropica for free since 2010! We've got this blog (we call it the Journal), full written walkthroughs for every island and quest in existence, and videos too!